Location spotlight: Roppongi Hills & Tokyo Midtown
Just a short time ago, when people spoke of the vibrant international district of "Roppongi" - conversations would likely contain references to great restaurants, wild nights at popular nightclubs and grand tales of excessive amounts of alcohol consumption. While "High-touch Town" is still a great night out, Roppongi is fast cleaning up its act and becoming a major business centre by day. Roppongi Hills and Tokyo Midtown are two large development projects that are literally changing the face of this remarkable part of Tokyo.
Roppongi Hills
Fourteen years in the planning and three years in construction, Roppongi Hills is a towering mega-complex with a tremendous amount of commercial space, apartments, restaurants, cafes, cultural institutions, the Grand Hyatt hotel, Virgin Cinemas, Hollywood Beauty Plaza, Roppongi Hills Medical Center and a major TV studio.High profile tenants include Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Yahoo Japan.
Facts
- Built by the "urban producer", Minoru Mori of Mori Building Co., an admirer of French architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965), who was a proponent of the "vertical city"
- Roppongi Hills is 238 meters above ground and 54-stories tall
- Occupies 11.6-hectares with 380,000 square meters of floor space
- Contains a total of 56.4 km of optical fibre lines with 15 LAN access points
- Built to withstand an earthquake of even greater magnitude than the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake.
- The project involving more than 400 landowners, and cost over 270 billion yen (2.43 billion USD), none of it tax money
- Opened to the public on April 23, 2003.
Mr. Mori's long-term vision is to build integrated developments (he recently opened Omotesando Hills in the popular Harajuku district) where high-rise inner-urban communities allow people to live, work, play, and shop in close proximity to eliminate commuting time. The argument goes that the 100,000 people who live and work within the complex will have more available leisure time, thus leading to a higher quality of life. A new urban lifestyle that will he plans to develop for years to come.
Two high-rise residential buildings within the Roppongi Hills mega-complex
Official website: www.roppongihills.com/en/
Tokyo Midtown
Tokyo Midtown Project is an ambitious high-rise development currently under construction in the Akasaka area of Minato-ku, Tokyo. Named after New York's "Midtown" - the developers, a co-ownership of 6 companies led by Mitsui Fudosan, aim to create a town that "represents Japan in the 21st century" - a center of design and creativity where work, life, play and recreation converge.
Facts
- Due to complete in spring of 2007
- Will include the tallest building in Tokyo at 248m (highest in Japan is the Yokohama Landmark Tower at 296m)
- Total development area of approx. 100,000 square meters (Approx.1 million sq. ft)
- 40% of the total land is covered by "greens"
- Total office space available for rent is 56,144 tsubo (185,275 sq. meters) of which most have already been contracted out.
- Total project cost of 3 billion USD
Facility highlights include
- 5-star Ritz Carlton Hotel will occupy the buildings top levels
- High-class residential apartments
- Suntory Art Museum
- Japan's one of the largest medical centers supported by Jones Hopkins Medicine International
- "21/21 Design Sight" designed by famous architect Tadao Ando and managed by the Issei Miyake Culture Foundation.
Official website: Official website: www.tokyo-midtown.com/en/main.html
Location Spotlight